Fellow A (we'll call him New Bee)walks into a gym with good intentions and the best of knowlege on exercises, and a great plan. New Bee's been reading up on good stuff lately when it comes to exercise (material such as that found in Fast and Furious Fitness), and is raring to get going. Pull ups are one of the first exercises he attempts, and being he's never done them before in correct form, he's obviously having a tough time with them. He's pretty much the only one in the gym doing pull-ups (the rest are all yanking away furiously on their respective machines); so pretty soon folks start noticing what he's doing. And being that the average gym goer these days treats the gym as more of a social spot than a no-nonsense balls-to-the-wall training area, the "water cooler" talk soon starts.

"Look at that dude, what on earth is he trying to do? Why not simply use the lat pull down machine instead of trying these hard exercises??"

"Man, pull-ups are tough, and they make my back muscles feel as if they've put through a wringer. What sort of geek would spend so much time on them"

And so forth. Obviously New Bee hears what they're saying, and pretty soon, he starts to wonder if he's doing the right thing after all. Was that guy Rahul right about what he wrote in Fast and Furious Fitness? I mean how can a bunch of others be wrong on this? And pretty soon, he starts to give up on the pull-ups, and caves in to the "peer" pressure at the gym, and ends up back where he started - on the machines. His new found resolve dissolves, and he's back to square one - or in many cases, ZERO.

Now, this story might sound funny to some, maybe even comical, but it's more common than you might think. And though I'm referring to training here, rest assured that this holds true for other activities as well. Success in school, business, your profession - you name it, and I could give you a similar example.

One major reason why a lot of people fail to achieve what they set out to accomplish is that they are too worried about what others might think of their actions. They may have the best intentions in mind, but balk at action - not necessarily because it involves hard work, but because they're worried about how it would "look to others". Or, "what Jane Doe will think of me struggling on the pull-ups". Or, "how stupid will I look doing that". And so on, and so forth. The exact reasons vary from person to person, but the core thought behind them remains the same.

Most people look at me as if I'm crazy when I train. In fact, when I'm practising handstands against a tree, even the neighborhood dogs look at me with a strange expression as if to say "what the heck is he doing?". In China, folks used to look at me as if I was plumb nuts when I told them I'd get my workout in no matter what the weather was like. And in all of these cases, I continued my own merry way, and did exactly what I wanted to do. And, the results speak for themselves.

So don't worry about what others think of your training. They may not think much of what you are doing, but does that really matter? What matters is that YOU know you are doing the right thing, getting the right form of advice, and training the right way. YOU know that you are doing the right exercises. And YOU know what kind of results to expect from doing things the right way. And in the end, that's what really counts, doesn't it?

Anyway, enough for now. If you train today, make it a GREAT one, and pay no heed to what the "naysayers" say!

Best regards,

Rahul

PS: I speak more about training success and the factors that influence one's training in Fast and Furious Fitness. Grab a copy pronto HERE.